Fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued; the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands. Today the importance of the fur trade has diminished. Animal rights organizations oppose the fur trade, citing that animals are brutally killed and sometimes skinned alive. Fur has been replaced in some clothing by synthetic imitations, for example, as in ruffs on hoods of parkas. Before the European colonization of the Americas, Russia was a major supplier of fur pelts to Western Europe and parts of Asia, its trade developed in the Early Middle Ages, first through exchanges at posts around the Baltic and Black seas. The main trading market destination was the German city of Leipzig. Kievan Russia, the first Russian State, was the first supplier of the Russian Fur Trade.
Russia exported raw furs, consisting in most cases of the pelts of martens, wolves, foxes and hares. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Russians began to settle in Siberia, a region rich in many mammal fur species, such as Arctic fox, sable, sea otter and stoat. In a search for the prized sea otter pelts, first used in China, for the northern fur seal, the Russian Empire expanded into North America, notably Alaska. From the 17th through the second half of the 19th century, Russia was the world's largest supplier of fur; the fur trade played a vital role in the development of Siberia, the Russian Far East and the Russian colonization of the Americas. As recognition of the importance of the trade to the Siberian economy, the sable is a regional symbol of the Ural Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Siberian Novosibirsk and Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia; the European discovery of North America, with its vast forests and wildlife the beaver, led to the continent becoming a major supplier in the 17th century of fur pelts for the fur felt hat and fur trimming and garment trades of Europe.
Fur was relied on to make warm clothing, a critical consideration prior to the organization of coal distribution for heating. Portugal and Spain played major roles in fur trading after the 15th century with their business in fur hats. From as early as the 10th century and boyars of Novgorod had exploited the fur resources "beyond the portage", a watershed at the White Lake that represents the door to the entire northwestern part of Eurasia, they began by establishing trading posts along the Volga and Vychegda river networks and requiring the Komi people to give them furs as tribute. Novgorod, the chief fur-trade center prospered as the easternmost trading post of the Hanseatic League. Novgorodians expanded farther east and north, coming into contact with the Pechora people of the Pechora River valley and the Yugra people residing near the Urals. Both of these native tribes offered more resistance than the Komi, killing many Russian tribute-collectors throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries.
As Muscovy gained more power in the 15th century and proceeded in the "gathering of the Russian lands", the Muscovite state began to rival the Novgorodians in the North. During the 15th century Moscow began subjugating many native tribes. One strategy involved exploiting antagonisms between tribes, notably the Komi and Yugra, by recruiting men of one tribe to fight in an army against the other tribe. Campaigns against native tribes in Siberia remained insignificant until they began on a much larger scale in 1483 and 1499. Besides the Novgorodians and the indigenes, Muscovites had to contend with the various Muslim Tatar khanates to the east of Muscovy. In 1552 Ivan IV, the Tsar of All the Russias, took a significant step towards securing Russian hegemony in Siberia when he sent a large army to attack the Kazan Tartars and ended up obtaining the territory from the Volga to the Ural Mountains. At this point the phrase "ruler of Obdor and all Siberian lands" became part of the title of the Tsar in Moscow.
So, problems ensued after 1558 when Ivan IV sent Grigory Stroganov to colonize land on the Kama and to subjugate and enserf the Komi living there. The Stroganov family soon came into conflict with the Khan of Sibir. Ivan told the Stroganovs to hire Cossack mercenaries to protect the new settlement from the Tatars. From ca 1581 the band of Cossacks led by Yermak Timofeyevich fought many battles that culminated in a Tartar victory and the temporary end to Russian occupation in the area. In 1584 Ivan’s son Fyodor sent military governors and soldiers to reclaim Yermak conquests and to annex the land held by the Khanate of Sibir. Similar skirmishes with Tartars took place across Siberia. Russian conquerors treated the natives of Siberia as exploited enemies who were inferior to them; as they penetrated deeper into Siberia, traders built outposts or winter lodges called zimovya where they lived and collected fur tribute from native tribes. By 1620 Russia dominated the land from the Urals eastward to the Yenisey valley and to the Altai Mountains in the south, comprising about 1.25 million square miles of land.
Furs would become Russia's largest source of wealth during the seventeenth centuries. Keeping up with the advances of Western Europe required significant capital and Russia did not have sources of gold and silver, but it did have furs, which became known as "soft gold" and provided Russia with hard cur
Lake Huron
Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as its westerly counterpart, to which it is connected by the 5-mile-wide, 20-fathom-deep Straits of Mackinac, it is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the state of Michigan in the United States. The name of the lake is derived from early French explorers who named it for the Huron people inhabiting the region; the Huronian glaciation was named due to evidence collected from Lake Huron region. The northern parts of the lake include the North Georgian Bay. Across the lake to the southwest is Saginaw Bay; the main inlet is the St. Marys River, the main outlet is the St. Clair River. By surface area, Lake Huron is the second-largest of the Great Lakes, with a surface area of 23,007 square miles — of which 9,103 square miles lies in Michigan. By volume however, Lake Huron is only the third largest of the Great Lakes, being surpassed by Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.
When measured at the low water datum, the lake contains a volume of 850 cubic miles and a shoreline length of 3,827 mi. The surface of Lake Huron is 577 feet above sea level; the lake's average depth is 32 fathoms 3 feet. It has a greatest breadth of 183 statute miles. Cities with over 10,000 people on Lake Huron include Sarnia, the largest city on Lake Huron, Saugeen Shores in Canada and Bay City, Port Huron, Alpena in the United States. A large bay that protrudes northeast from Lake Huron into Ontario, Canada, is called Georgian Bay. A notable feature of the lake is Manitoulin Island, which separates the North Channel and Georgian Bay from Lake Huron's main body of water, it is the world's largest lake island. Major centres on Georgian Bay include Owen Sound, Wasaga Beach, Midland, Port Severn and Parry Sound. A smaller bay that protrudes southwest from Lake Huron into Michigan is called Saginaw Bay. Historic High Water The lake fluctuates from month to month with the highest lake levels in October and November.
The normal high-water mark is 2.00 feet above datum. In the summer of 1986, Lakes Michigan and Huron reached their highest level at 5.92 feet above datum. The high-water records began in February 1986 and lasted through the year, ending with January 1987. Water levels ranged from 3.67 to 5.92 feet above Chart Datum. Historic Low Water Lake levels tend to be the lowest in winter; the normal low-water mark is 1.00 foot below datum. In the winter of 1964, Lakes Michigan and Huron reached their lowest level at 1.38 feet below datum. As with the high-water records, monthly low-water records were set each month from February 1964 through January 1965. During this twelve-month period, water levels ranged from 1.38 to 0.71 feet below Chart Datum. The Great Lakes Circle Tour is a designated scenic road system connecting all the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. Lake Huron has the largest shore line length of any of the Great Lakes, counting its 30,000 islands. Lake Huron is separated from Lake Michigan, which lies at the same level, by the 5-mile-wide, 20-fathom-deep Straits of Mackinac, making them hydrologically the same body of water.
Aggregated, Lake Huron-Michigan, at 45,300 square miles, "is technically the world's largest freshwater lake." When counted separately, Lake Superior is 8,700 square miles higher. Lake Superior drains into the St. Marys River which flows southward into Lake Huron; the water flows south to the St. Clair River, at Port Huron and Sarnia, Ontario; the Great Lakes Waterway continues thence to Lake St. Clair. Like the other Great Lakes, it was formed by melting ice as the continental glaciers retreated toward the end of the last ice age. Before this, Lake Huron was a low-lying depression through which flowed the now-buried Laurentian and Huronian Rivers; the Alpena-Amberley Ridge is an ancient ridge beneath the surface of Lake Huron, running between Alpena and Point Clark, Ontario. About 9,000 years ago, when water levels in Lake Huron were about 100 m below today's levels, the ridge was exposed and the land bridge was used as a migration route for large herds of caribou. Since 2008, archaeologists have discovered at least 60 stone constructions along the submerged ridge that are thought to have been used as hunting blinds by Paleo-Indians.
The extent of development among Eastern Woodlands Native American societies on the eve of European contact is indicated by the archaeological evidence of a town on or near Lake Huron that contained more than one hundred large structures housing a total population of between 4,000 and 6,000. The French, the first European visitors to the region referred to Lake Huron as La Mer Douce, "the fresh-water sea". In 1656, a map by French cartographer Nicolas Sanson
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located within the United States. The other four Great Lakes are shared by the U. S. and Canada. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the wide Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart. Lake Michigan is shared, from west to east, by the U. S. states of Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. Ports along its shores include Chicago; the word "Michigan" referred to the lake itself, is believed to come from the Ojibwe word michi-gami meaning "great water". Some of the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Indians, their culture declined after 800 AD, for the next few hundred years, the region was the home of peoples known as the Late Woodland Indians. In the early 17th century, when western European explorers made their first forays into the region, they encountered descendants of the Late Woodland Indians: the Chippewa.
The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638. In the earliest European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has been found in addition to that of "Michigan", named for the Illinois Confederation of tribes. Lake Michigan is joined via the narrow, open-water Straits of Mackinac with Lake Huron, the combined body of water is sometimes called Michigan–Huron; the Straits of Mackinac were an important Native American and fur trade route. Located on the southern side of the Straits is the town of Mackinaw City, the site of Fort Michilimackinac, a reconstructed French fort founded in 1715, on the northern side is St. Ignace, site of a French Catholic mission to the Indians, founded in 1671. In 1673, Jacques Marquette, Louis Joliet and their crew of five Métis voyageurs followed Lake Michigan to Green Bay and up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters, in their search for the Mississippi River, cf. Fox–Wisconsin Waterway.
The eastern end of the Straits was controlled by Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, a British colonial and early American military base and fur trade center, founded in 1781. With the advent of European exploration into the area in the late 17th century, Lake Michigan became part of a line of waterways leading from the Saint Lawrence River to the Mississippi River and thence to the Gulf of Mexico. French coureurs des bois and voyageurs established small ports and trading communities, such as Green Bay, on the lake during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Lake Michigan played a major role in the development of Chicago and the Midwestern United States west of the lake. For example, 90% of the grain shipped from Chicago travelled east over Lake Michigan during the antebellum years, only falling below 50% after the Civil War and the major expansion of railroad shipping; the first person to reach the deep bottom of Lake Michigan was J. Val Klump, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
Klump reached the bottom via submersible as part of a 1985 research expedition. In 2007, a row of stones paralleling an ancient shoreline was discovered by Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College; this formation lies 40 feet below the surface of the lake. One of the stones is said to have a carving resembling a mastodon. So far the formation has not been authenticated; the warming of Lake Michigan was the subject of a report by Purdue University in 2018. In each decade since 1980, steady increases in average surface temperature have occurred; this is to lead to decreasing native habitat and to adversely affect native species survival. Lake Michigan is the sole Great Lake wholly within the borders of the United States, it lies in the region known as the American Midwest. Lake Michigan has a surface area of 22,404 sq.mi. It is the larger half of Lake Michigan–Huron, the largest body of fresh water in the world by surface area, it is 307 miles long by 118 miles wide with a shoreline 1,640 miles long.
The lake's average depth is 46 fathoms 3 feet. It contains a volume of 1,180 cubic miles of water. Green Bay in the northwest is its largest bay. Grand Traverse Bay in its northeast is another large bay. Lake Michigan's deepest region, which lies in its northern-half, is called Chippewa Basin and is separated from South Chippewa Basin, by a shallower area called the Mid Lake Plateau. Twelve million people live along Lake Michigan's shores in the Chicago and Milwaukee metropolitan areas; the economy of many communities in northern Michigan and Door County, Wisconsin is supported by tourism, with large seasonal populations attracted by Lake Michigan. Seasonal residents have summer homes along the waterfront and return home for the winter; the southern
Northern Michigan
Northern Michigan known as Northern Lower Michigan or Upper Michigan, is a region of the U. S. state of Michigan. A popular tourist destination, it is home to several small- to medium-sized cities, extensive state and national forests and rivers, a large portion of Great Lakes shoreline; the region has a significant seasonal population much like other regions that depend on tourism as their main industry. Northern Lower Michigan is distinct from the more northerly Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale, which are located in "northern" Michigan. In the northern-most 21 counties in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, the total population of the region is 506,658 people; the southern boundary of the region is not defined. Some residents in the southern part of the state consider its southern limit to be just north of Flint, Port Huron, Grand Rapids, but more northern residents restrict it to the area north of Mount Pleasant: the "fingers" of the mitten-like shape of the Lower Peninsula; the 45th parallel runs across Northern Michigan.
Signs in the Lower Peninsula that mark that line are at Mission Point Light. Suttons Bay, Cairn Highway in Kewadin, Michigan on U. S. 131 Highway, Gaylord and Alpena. These are six of 29 places in the U. S. A. where such monuments are known to exist. One other such sign is in Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. Across the Straits of Mackinac, to the north and northeast, lies the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Despite its geographic location as the most northerly part of Michigan, the Upper Peninsula is not included in the definition of Northern Michigan, is instead regarded by Michigan residents as a distinct region of the state, although residents of the Upper Peninsula say that "Northern Michigan" is not in the Lower Peninsula, they insist the region must only be referred to as "Northern Lower Michigan" and this can sometimes become a topic of contention between people who are from different Peninsulas. The two regions are connected by the 5 mile long Mackinac Bridge. All of the northern Lower Peninsula – north of a line from Manistee County on the west to Iosco County on the east – is considered to be part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gaylord.
The geographical theme of this region is shaped by rolling hills, Great Lakes shorelines including coastal dunes on the west coast, large inland lakes, numerous rivers and large forests. A tension zone is identified running from Muskegon to Saginaw Bay marked by a change in soil type and common tree species. North of the line the historic presettlement forests were beech and sugar maple, mixed with hemlock, white pine, yellow birch which only grew on moist soils further south. Southern Michigan forests were deciduous with oaks, red maple, shagbark hickory and cottonwood which are uncommon further north. Northern Michigan soils tend to be coarser, the growing season is shorter with a cooler climate. Lake effect weather brings significant snowfalls to snow belt areas of Northern Michigan. Glaciers shaped the area. A large portion of the area is the so-called Grayling outwash plain, which consists of broad outwash plain including sandy ice-disintegration ridges. Large lakes were created by glacial action.
The region has the four seasons in their extremes, with sometimes hot and humid summer days to subzero days in winter. With the expansive hardwood forest in Northern Michigan, "fall color" tourist are found throughout the area in early to mid-autumn; when the spring rains come, many roads and bridges become impassable due to flooding or muddy to the point a four-wheel drive cannot pass. Snow fall totals can vary throughout the region due to lake-effect snow from the prevailing westerly winds off of Lake Michigan, with average yearly snow fall of 141.4" in Gaylord to 52.4" in Harrisville. Both the high and low temperature records for all of Michigan are held by communities in Northern Lower Michigan; the high is 112 °F set in Mio on July 13, 1936 and the low is −51 °F set in Vanderbilt on February 9, 1934. In the northern-most 21 counties in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, the total population of the region is 506,658 people; the area was populated by many different ethnicities, including groups from New England, Ireland and Poland.
The Odawa nation is located in Emmet County. Native American reservations exist on the Leelanau Peninsula. There are 21 counties traditionally associated with Northern Michigan: Below is a list of cities and unincorporated communities in northern Michigan: Boating and camping are leading activities. Sailing, canoeing, bicycling, horse back riding, and'off roading' are important avocations; the forest activities are available everywhere. There are a great many Michigan state parks and other protected areas which make these a'pleasant peninsula.' These would include the Huron National Forest and the Manistee National Forest, plus the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness. Many city dwellers from "downstate" and nearby areas (notably Chi
Michigan
Michigan is a state in the Great Lakes and Midwestern regions of the United States. The state's name, originates from the Ojibwe word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake". With a population of about 10 million, Michigan is the tenth most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area, is the largest state by total area east of the Mississippi River, its capital is Lansing, its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's largest metropolitan economies. Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas; the Lower Peninsula is noted as shaped like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan; the Mackinac Bridge connects the peninsulas. The state has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair; as a result, it is one of the leading U.
S. states for recreational boating. Michigan has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. A person in the state is never more than six miles from a natural water source or more than 85 miles from a Great Lakes shoreline; the area was first occupied by a succession of Native American tribes over thousands of years. Inhabited by Natives, Métis, French explorers in the 17th century, it was claimed as part of New France colony. After France's defeat in the French and Indian War in 1762, the region came under British rule. Britain ceded this territory to the newly independent United States after Britain's defeat in the American Revolutionary War; the area was part of the larger Northwest Territory until 1800, when western Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory. Michigan Territory was formed in 1805, but some of the northern border with Canada was not agreed upon until after the War of 1812. Michigan was admitted into the Union in 1837 as a free one, it soon became an important center of industry and trade in the Great Lakes region and a popular immigrant destination in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Although Michigan developed a diverse economy, it is known as the center of the U. S. automotive industry, which developed as a major economic force in the early 20th century. It is home to the country's three major automobile companies. While sparsely populated, the Upper Peninsula is important for tourism thanks to its abundance of natural resources, while the Lower Peninsula is a center of manufacturing, agriculture and high-tech industry; when the first European explorers arrived, the most populous tribes were Algonquian peoples, which include the Anishinaabe groups of Ojibwe, Odaawaa/Odawa, the Boodewaadamii/Bodéwadmi. The three nations co-existed peacefully as part of a loose confederation called the Council of Three Fires; the Ojibwe, whose numbers are estimated to have been between 25,000 and 35,000, were the largest. The Ojibwe were established in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and northern and central Michigan, inhabited Ontario and southern Manitoba, Canada; the Ottawa lived south of the Straits of Mackinac in northern and southern Michigan, but in southern Ontario, northern Ohio and eastern Wisconsin.
The Potawatomi were in southern and western Michigan, in addition to northern and central Indiana, northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin, southern Ontario. Other Algonquian tribes in Michigan, in the south and east, were the Mascouten, the Menominee, the Miami, the Sac, the Fox; the Wyandot were an Iroquoian-speaking people in this area. French voyageurs and coureurs des bois settled in Michigan in the 17th century; the first Europeans to reach what became Michigan were those of Étienne Brûlé's expedition in 1622. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1668 on the site where Père Jacques Marquette established Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan as a base for Catholic missions. Missionaries in 1671–75 founded outlying stations at Saint Ignace and Marquette. Jesuit missionaries were well received by the area's Indian populations, with few difficulties or hostilities. In 1679, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle built Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph. In 1691, the French established a trading post and Fort St. Joseph along the St. Joseph River at the present-day city of Niles.
In 1701, French explorer and army officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or "Fort Pontchartrain on-the-Strait" on the strait, known as the Detroit River, between lakes Saint Clair and Erie. Cadillac had convinced King Louis XIV's chief minister, Louis Phélypeaux, Comte de Pontchartrain, that a permanent community there would strengthen French control over the upper Great Lakes and discourage British aspirations; the hundred soldiers and workers who accompanied Cadillac built a fort enclosing one arpent and named it Fort Pontchartrain. Cadillac's wife, Marie Thérèse Guyon, soon moved to Detroit, becoming one of the first European women to settle in what was considered the wilderness of Michigan; the town became a major fur-trading and shipping post. The Église de Saint-Anne was founded the same year. While the original building does not survive, the congregation remains active. Cadillac departed to serve as the French governor of Louisiana from 1710 to 1716.
French attempts to consol
St. Ignace, Michigan
Saint Ignace written as St. Ignace, is a city near the tip of the Upper Peninsula of the US state of Michigan, on the northern side of the Straits of Mackinac, it sits on the shore of Lake Huron at the north end of the Mackinac Bridge, opposite Mackinaw City, serving as the gateway to the UP for travelers coming from the Lower Peninsula. It is one of two ports with ferry service to Mackinac Island, is the only mainland city accessible from the island when Lake Huron is frozen over. St. Ignace Township is politically independent, it is the county seat of Mackinac County. The population was 2,452 at the 2010 census, nearly one-third of the population of the city identified as Native American; the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, a state-recognized tribe, is headquartered at St. Ignace; the Ottawa people known as Odawa, comprised another Algonquian-speaking tribe before European encounter. Their descendants joined with the Chippewa in this area to organize for self-government. Jesuit priests established a mission in the 17th century at what was a village of the Wyandot people known by the French as the Huron.
They are an Iroquoian-language group. It became a center of fur trading with the French for regional peoples. In the 18th century, the Ojibwe entered the area and were an important group near the Great Lakes. In the 21st century, the federally recognized Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians owns and operates a casino on its land in St. Ignace. St. Ignace is the second-oldest city founded by Europeans in Michigan. Various cultures of Native Americans had inhabited the area for thousands of years before the first exploration here by French colonists. Early historic peoples of the area in the 17th century were predominantly the Iroquoian-speaking Wendat, whom the French called the Huron. By the early 18th century, the Anishinaabe Ojibwe, who spoke one of the Algonquian languages, became prominent in the region. Another related Anishinaabe people were the Odawa in their language; the third member of the Council of Three Fires, a loose confederacy of these tribes, was the Potowatomi people. All three peoples have descendants who are members of various federally recognized tribes in northern Michigan.
French explorer and priest Jacques Marquette founded the St. Ignace Mission on this site in 1671 and was buried here after his death, he named it for St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit religious order, whose priests were active as missionaries across North America. Jesuits served at missions to convert First Nations/Native Americans to Catholicism and to share French culture. In 1673, Marquette joined the expedition of Louis Jolliet, a French-Canadian explorer, departed from St. Ignace on May 17, with two canoes and five voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry on a voyage to find the Mississippi River, they descended downriver as far as Arkansas. While separately exploring the Great Lakes region on the ship Le Griffon with Louis Hennepin, Sieur de La Salle reached St. Ignace on August 27, 1679. Louis de La Porte, Sieur de Louvigny founded Fort de Buade here in 1681 as a fur trading post, it was directed by Antoine Cadillac. It was closed by the French in 1697; the Jesuits abandoned their mission in 1705.
The Ojibwe, who came to dominate most of the Native American territory of present-day Michigan in the 18th century, were allies of the French in the Seven Years' War against the British. After the British victory in the Seven Years' War, in 1763 they took over the territory of France in North America, including this part of the former New France. After the victory of rebellious colonists in the American Revolutionary War, in 1783 the village was included within the new United States, as part of what became called its Northwest Territory. An important fur trading site for both the French and the British, St. Ignace declined in importance by the early 19th century; the Ojibwe had allied with Great Britain in the War of 1812, based on their long trading and a hope they were expel American colonists. The fur trade declined at St. Ignace because the United States prohibited British Canadian traders from operating across the border after the end of the war. At the same time European demand for North American furs was declining as tastes changed, other parts of the economy grew.
Both British-Canadians and Americans operated a larger trading center at Sault Ste. Marie, which developed on both sides of the Canadian-US border, until the decline of the fur trade in the 1830s; the fur trade suffered before and during the hostilities of the War of 1812, as the United States first imposed a boycott on all trade with England, including traders in Canada. Many local people kept businesses going by smuggling, but postwar prohibitions on the fur trade were more difficult to avoid. Prohibited British traders from operating across the border, as had been their earlier practice; the Ojibwe had allied with the British, their longtime trading partners, during the War of 1812, In 1882, construction of the Detroit and Marquette Railroad, which connected the straits area to the major city of Detroit, provided an economic boost to the village. Farmers and the lumber industry could more get products to a major market. St. Ignace was incorporated as a village on February 23, 1882, as a city in 1883.
In the late 19th century, a new sector of its economy developed, as it began to attract tourists as a popular summer resort and for its connection to Mackinac Island. Since the late 20th century, the city has become a rural destination for heritage tourism and is part of a regional area popular for summer tourism. A variet
Minnesota
Minnesota is a state in the Upper Midwest and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U. S. state on May 11, 1858, created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory. The state has a large number of lakes, is known by the slogan the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", its official motto is L'Étoile du Nord. Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 22nd most populous of the U. S. states. This area is the center of transportation, industry and government, while being home to an internationally known arts community; the remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture. Minnesota was inhabited by various indigenous peoples for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. French explorers and fur traders began exploring the region in the 17th century, encountering the Dakota and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe tribes. Much of what is today Minnesota was part of the vast French holding of Louisiana, purchased by the United States in 1803.
Following several territorial reorganizations, Minnesota in its current form was admitted as the country's 32nd state on May 11, 1858. Like many Midwestern states, it remained centered on lumber and agriculture. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a large number of European immigrants from Scandinavia and Germany, began to settle the state, which remains a center of Scandinavian American and German American culture. In recent decades, immigration from Asia, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America has broadened its demographic and cultural composition; the state's economy has diversified, shifting from traditional activities such as agriculture and resource extraction to services and finance. Minnesota's standard of living index is among the highest in the United States, the state is among the best-educated and wealthiest in the nation; the word Minnesota comes from the Dakota name for the Minnesota River: The river got its name from one of two words in the Dakota language,'Mní sóta' which means "clear blue water", or'Mnißota', which means cloudy water.
Native Americans demonstrated the name to early settlers by dropping milk into water and calling it mnisota. Many places in the state have similar names, such as Minnehaha Falls, Minneota, Minnetonka and Minneapolis, a combination of mni and polis, the Greek word for "city". Minnesota is the second northernmost U. S. state and northernmost contiguous state. Its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods county is the only part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th parallel; the state is part of the U. S. region known as part of North America's Great Lakes Region. It shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and a land and water border with Wisconsin to the east. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota are to the west, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba are to the north. With 86,943 square miles, or 2.25% of the United States, Minnesota is the 12th-largest state. Minnesota has gneisses that are about 3.6 billion years old. About 2.7 billion years ago, basaltic lava poured out of cracks in the floor of the primordial ocean.
The roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. Following a period of volcanism 1.1 billion years ago, Minnesota's geological activity has been more subdued, with no volcanism or mountain formation, but with repeated incursions of the sea, which left behind multiple strata of sedimentary rock. In more recent times, massive ice sheets at least one kilometer thick ravaged the state's landscape and sculpted its terrain; the Wisconsin glaciation left 12,000 years ago. These glaciers covered all of Minnesota except the far southeast, an area characterized by steep hills and streams that cut into the bedrock; this area is known as the Driftless Zone for its absence of glacial drift. Much of the remainder of the state outside the northeast has 50 feet or more of glacial till left behind as the last glaciers retreated. Gigantic Lake Agassiz formed in the northwest 13,000 years ago, its bed created the fertile Red River valley, its outflow, glacial River Warren, carved the valley of the Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi downstream from Fort Snelling.
Minnesota is geologically quiet today. The state's high point is Eagle Mountain at 2,301 feet, only 13 miles away from the low of 601 feet at the shore of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding dramatic local differences in elevation, much of the state is a rolling peneplain. Two major drainage divides meet in Minnesota's northeast in rural Hibbing, forming a triple watershed. Precipitation can follow the Mississippi River south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Saint Lawrence Seaway east to the Atlantic Ocean, or the Hudson Bay watershed to the Arctic Ocean; the state's nickname, "Land of 10,000 Lakes", is apt, as there are 11,842 Minnesota lakes over 10 acres in size. Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior is the largest at 962,700 acres and deepest body of wate
United States
